LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Tippecanoe County Sheriff's Office failed two recent fire inspections with the biggest violation caused by a wooden facade on a wall in the lobby.

The wooden facade with a distinctive frontier western theme over a newly constructed wall on the second floor was erected earlier this year, Tippecanoe County Sheriff Barry Richard said, and it walled off what had been a hallway.

"We were able to transform that area into a very important area for training,” Richard said, noting it is the location of the department's firearm training simulator.

“It’s just a cedar siding from the store,” Richard said of the material, while explaining the theme is the stereotypical association of sheriffs and the wild west.

For fire inspection purposes, the cedar sidings is a hazard, said Brian Alkire, Lafayette Fire Department assistant chief for fire prevention. The untreated wood on the wall of a public building would spread flames and smoke too quickly should it catch fire.

“It was caught on an annual fire inspection,” Alkire said. “We did cite that the wood was not the appropriate flame spread.”

This meant that the wood, which was attached to the wall with screws, was removed, treated with a flame retardant spray and re-attached to the wall. It now passes inspection, Alkire said.

"It is common that we find items on the fire inspections," Alkire said. "The larger the facility, the more likely that multiple code violations will be found. The Lafayette Fire Department has found code violations at other Tippecanoe County properties as well as city of Lafayette properties."

Even with the violation, Richard pointed out the building's sprinkler system.

“You can see there are sprinklers on both sides of the wall,” he said, adding that they immediately took steps to comply with the fire inspectors' findings.

Brian Myers, maintenance director at the sheriff’s office, estimated the initial construction took about 15 hours of work with the measuring, cutting and attaching of the wood.

But after the violations were noticed, Myers estimated it took an hour to remove the facade, about 30 minutes to treat it and another hour to re-install the facade.

Myers estimated the fire retardant spray cost $30.

The August inspection found seven violations ranging from illegible printing on the sprinkler system plate to the wooden wall to an ill-fitted range hood in the jail kitchen.

Only a written emergency plan and replacing the sprinkler system spec plate remains unresolved, according to a September follow-up inspection.

Alkire said a November meeting to review the emergency plan had to be canceled and will be rescheduled soon.

"Generally, items — while a violation of the fire code — are found to be minor items and most often the business/property owners are receptive to working with us to reach compliance," Alkire said. "The Lafayette Fire Department looks at the fire inspection process as education first rather than enforcement."